Pocut Pete with a laugh,
closing his rather large pocket knife with a snap. "All the same, if
you don't want me to snip off that wart I won't."

"I wouldn't," said Bud. "Not but what I'm glad to have you take an
interest in the cattle," he went on, "but cutting one with a knife
might bring on blood poisoning."

"Yes, an' jabbin' a knife into one might set it wild, an' it would rush
off an' start a stampede," said Billee.

"I realized that," admitted Pocut Pete, "so that's why I didn't do it
until I got this steer off by himself."

He spoke this truly enough, for the lone animal he had been "operating"
on was some distance from the main herd.

"I never saw a wart on a steer," spoke Bud, as he urged his pony nearer
to where the strange cowboy stood on the ground close to the beef
animal. "It's queer----"

There was a sudden movement. Pocut Pete leaped back and the steer, as
though taking fright at Bud's advance, lowered its head, and, with a
loud bellow, sprang away.

"I told you so!" called out Old Billee. "You might 'a' got horned,
Pete!"

"Oh, I was watching," came the answer. "Yes, warts do, sometimes, come
on cattle," he went on. "I've cut off lots of 'em. Some beef men
won't pass 'em if they have any. I thought I was doing you a favor."
He spoke in an injured tone of voice.

"Well, maybe you were," admitted Bud. "First I thought you were
someone else."

"One of the Double Z bunch?" asked Pocut Pete with a laugh. "Did you
find out anything over there?" he inquired as he caught his pony, which
had been standing near-by, and leaped into the saddle.

"Nary a thing," voiced Old Billee.

And then, as the group, Pocut Pete included, headed back for camp, the
old cowboy broke into song, roaring out:

"Send me a letter, kid,
Write it yo'self!
Put in some news of th' city.
For it's lonesome out here,
'Neath th' blue, starry sky,
An' cowboys don't get any pity!"

"What's struck you?" laughed Bud.

"Oh, I feel sorter so-so," affirmed Old Billee. "We're in for a storm,
I reckon."

"And that's your weather indication!" chuckled Nort.

"Yeppy," agreed the veteran, and he broke into another verse of the
interminable song--one of the series that cowboys love to warble.

"What do you think of Pocut Pete?" asked Dick of Bud in the seclusion
of their own tent that night.

"Oh, I don't know what to think," was the answer. "I did have him down
for a drinker, or a doper, but he doesn